27 



like them in form. In S. Herii the cephalothorax is reddish brown, 

 with the head of the same colour or dark-brown, whereas the ce- 

 phalothorax of S. pygmcea is entirely dark-brown, only with in ge- 

 neral lighter, yellowish side-borders. The abdomen of S. Herii is 

 yellowish, with two narrow blackish bands on the back, which are 

 sometimes resolved into a row of spots, and sometimes are very 

 faint; in <S. pygmcea the abdomen is dark-brown, with three yellow 

 or whitish, narrow bands along the back, of which sometimes the 

 middle, sometimes the two side bands may be more or less oblite- 

 rated. (In the adult cf of S. pygmcea the cephalothorax and abdo- 

 men are of a uniform dark-brown colour. ')) In 5. Herii the abdo- 

 men seems to me to be more elongated in front, the rounding off 

 there being somewhat pointed, not uniform, as in S. pygmcea. In 

 this last the quadrangle formed by the 4 central eyes is, strictly 

 speaking, a hairsbreadth narrower in front, which appears to me 

 not to be the case in & Herii. My opinion is, that all these diffe- 

 rences together indicate that <S. Herii and S. pygmcea or trifasciata 

 are two different species. 



Six*) believes that C. Koch's 5. semdata (E. tubidosa Hahn), 

 nitidula, trifasciata, Herii and nigrifrons all belong to One and the 

 same species, which, when young, has white bands, afterwards 

 yellow and at last orange-coloured. As he does not mention any 

 other distinguishing mark of the forms he speaks of, it is impossi- 

 ble to know whether they all belong to our S. pygmcea, or whether 

 some of them may not belong to other forms, as e. g. the above 

 so often mentioned S. Herii (Hahn) which, as well as the to me 

 unknown S. nitidula, I look upon as a separate species. I ought to 

 mention that, even among full-grown females of S. pygmcea, examples 

 occur with whitish bands, and accordingly that colour is not exclu- 

 sively confined to young individuals. An accurate comparison of the 

 organs of copulation in both sexes of all the spiders in question 

 would probably be necessary in order to determine with certainty, 

 which of them are independent species and which mere varieties. 



1) Six (Lijst van Spinnen in de Provinzie Utrecht gevonden, in Herklotz, 

 Bouwstoffe voor eene Fauna van Nederland, II, p. 293) says that he found se- 

 veral males of S. trifasciata '"with more or less evanescent bands on the abdomen." 

 Were not the individuals, in which these band were still visible, young, as yet 

 not full-grown specimens? 



2) Opmerkingen omtrent de kleurverandering van Ep. Herii (Tijdschrift voor 

 Entomologie, I) p. 188. 



